"I've never been much of a dancing man," said Mr. Direck. "What sort of
dance is this?"

"Just anything. A two-step."

Mr. Direck hesitated and regretted a well-spent youth, and then Hugh
came prancing forward with outstretched hands and swept her away.

Just for an instant Mr. Direck felt that this young man was a trifle
superfluous....

But it was very amusing dancing.

It wasn't any sort of taught formal dancing. It was a spontaneous retort
to the leaping American music that Mr. Britling footed out. You kept
time, and for the rest you did as your nature prompted. If you had a
partner you joined hands, you fluttered to and from one another, you
paced down the long floor together, you involved yourselves in romantic
pursuits and repulsions with other couples. There was no objection to
your dancing alone. Teddy, for example, danced alone in order to develop
certain Egyptian gestures that were germinating in his brain. There was
no objection to your joining hands in a cheerful serpent....

Mr. Direck hung on to Cissie and her partner. They danced very well
together; they seemed to like and understand each other. It was natural
of course for two young people like that, thrown very much together, to
develop an affection for one another.... Still, she was older by three
or four years.

It seemed unreasonable that the boy anyhow shouldn't be in love with